06.28.09

[Milton Bradley's slow burn, just before his Gatorade machine smackdown.]

When I got e-mail yesterday asking if I knew about the Lou v Mitlon dispute, I hoped it was a ribald steam room story about Lou Costello and Milton Berle with the punchline, “Come on Milton, just take out enough to win.” Nope, Boo Bradley, for whom I should be on retainer at this point, spent part of the Cubs 8-7 loss yesterday to the hated pale hose arguing with umpires. Bradley’s right, he does get handed a different set of rules from umpires. Lou’s also right, Bradley’s wasting his time and hurting his team by engaging in fights he’ll never win. Lou, who spent the off-season reading “psychology” books he bought off Amazon, laid into Bradley and called him a “piece of shit” in the dugout and sent him to the showers “ but not before Bradley went after the Cubs’ beleagured Gatorade machine. Well, the Sox’ s machine, as the Cubs’ Gatorade machine was removed for its own safety. Bradley sought solace in the local Chicago media, and Paul Sulliivan was only too happy to climb up on a chair to give Milton a shoulder to cry on, here. “If it’s a motivating tactic and he’s taking a different switch since people are saying he didn’t have fire, then I understand. I take a lot of heed in what he has to say. It matters. I take it to heart, and I’m better for it.” Glad to hear it. The Cubs then lost today, 6-0. Watching Lou lose his temper brought out some sympathy from the one man in Sox Park who knows a player beat down well, Ozzie Guillien. As Ozzie said:

“You know what™s funny, because players now, they™re scared to take charge because they might lose the relationship of his teammate,” Guillen said. They might lose a friendship. I remember when something was not right in the clubhouse or the dugout, players took care of that.

“Now, the manager and the coaches have got to be the guys to do it. I don™t think players now in baseball, they don™t have the guts to get on his teammates for something they do wrong. We™re missing that. I think that™s the reason Lou has to be the guy taking charge or me taking charge. I remember when players don™t like something about your teammate, they jump on your (rear) and get on it. If you like it, you like it. If you don™t, that™s the way we™re going to do stuff here. Now, the players are scared. I don™t say it™s respect. I think most of the time they™re scared about losing a relationship. I think the players don™t take charge anymore.

In other Cubs news, I’m officially voting for Geo Soto on my all-star ballot since Soto tested positive for a PID, performance inhibiting drug. ESPN reported Thursday that Soto tested + for marijuana during the World Baseball Classic (“claaaaaaaasic, dude!” he called it, while laughing stupidly), and has not served a day in jail. This news got tsunamied by another drug addict having a bad Thursday, so you may not have heard. Is there an asterisk for players who make their job harder? It should note that Soto’s BA .228 for the year, had he not been stoned, would be somehwere in the .260s right now. I hope the HOF judges keep that in mind while voting, is all I’m saying. Fans worried about his future can chill, as Soto says the dope has NOT killed his love of the game. “I am fully dedicated to the game of baseball and my teammates, and I apologize for any distraction and embarrassment this may cause them,” he said three times in a row.

Utay’s got to have a lot more than $900mil if he can afford New Trier’s membership dues. (And I thought Harvard, IL was the Harvard of the Northern suburbs. But anyway…)

Being as objective as I can Zambrano’s fall-apart in the sixth was pretty rotten stuff, but watching Phil Rogers turn on him today is, in its own way, equally lousy – ideologically rather than lacking control-like. There’s been something particularly venomous about the Trib’s response to the Cubs’ (under)performance this year. It’s like reading Pravda during a putsch when it isn’t clear who’s going to wind up as the scapegoat ultimately. They’re just calling for more and more blood.